THOMAS H. GLOVER OF LEXINGTON TO BE NAMED NEW KBA BAR COUNSEL – some Board members upset they were not allowed to meet him.

LawReader has learned that Thomas H. Glover of Lexington will be named Bar Counsel of the Ky. Bar Association the first week of October. Glover a former President of the Fayette County Bar Association was voted in by a majority of the members of the Board of Governors last week. The Executive Committee recommended him for the post. Several Board members requested a chance to meet Glover in person, but the majority of the Board denied their request, and they approved his hiring without a personal interview him or other possible candidates.

We are advised that five Board members voted against his hiring due mainly to their belief that this appointment should have been preceded by his appearance before the full Board of Governors.
A Board member told LawReader that they voted against his hiring due to the refusal of the majority to allow the full Board to meet with him. The Board member said, “I hear good things about him, but would like to have met him before I voted.” Some members of the l7 member board were not present when Glover was selected, and some voted by phone.

The Bar Counsel is the administrator of the Bar Counsel’s office which handles ethics complaints against attorneys. The Office has an annual budget of $1.7 million dollars, the largest single expenditure of the KBA. The office has nine full time attorney slots, and a total of 24 employees.

The KBA has ignored requests from LawReader for disclosure of how much money has been spent by the KBA in the last two years for outside counsel.

Even with an office staff of nine full time lawyers the Board continues to approve the employment of outside counsel to handle appeals to the Ky. Supreme Court and in the recent federal lawsuit in which the KBA became liable for more than $400,000 for trying to suppress the free speech rights of an attorney. One Board member, Douglas Farnsley of Louisville, is employed by the Stites & Harbison law firm. That firm was recently paid over $200,000 by the KBA to represent the KBA as outside counsel.

KBA President Myers told the press that most of the $400,000 they were required to pay for court costs and attorney fees in the John M. Berry Jr. civil rights case, “was paid by insurance”.
The office of Bar Counsel has been vacate for over 10 months.

The new Bar Counsel will have to jump into an office that is reported to have an investigation underway regarding a past KBA President. (Courier Journal 2008) The Board refuses to disclose the reason that Linda Gosnell was discharged last November.

“KBA President Doug Myers, of Hopkinsville, said Gover was one of about 40 lawyers who were considered and the top recommendation of a search committee who interviewed six candidates.
“He is a decorated Vietnam veteran with a cool, calm demeanor, which is the kind of guy we’re looking for in this position,” Myers said.
Glover, a graduate of Peabody College who attended Vanderbilt University and what is now the University of Memphis, got his law degree from University of Louisville. He served seven years on the Fayette bar’s board of directors and as its president.